It is well known in the art to use vacuum forming for the manufacture of three-dimensional trim panels, for example automobile door trim panels. When it is desired to have a multiple colored trim panel, individual trim pieces are manufactured, each trim piece being manufactured from a different color material. These individual pieces are then assembled into a finished trim panel by various methods known in the art.
One method of assembling multi-colored trim panels is to assemble the individual trim pieces onto the finished frame work or structure designed to properly position the individual pieces. For an automobile door trim panel, this would be the door frame. The assembly of the individual trim pieces themselves can either properly position each colored piece with respect to the other colored pieces or the attachment method being used can attach two adjacent colored pieces thus properly positioning both of them. This method is time consuming, expensive and provides a finish panel or door trim with a wide variability in the mating lines of the various trim pieces due to the variability of each of the individual components as the tolerances of the individual components are additive.
Another method which is often used is to pre-assemble the complete panel prior to assembling the panel onto the finished frame work or structure. In this method, the individual trim pieces are attached to each other by gluing, bonding, mechanical fasteners other methods well known in the art. These preassembled pieces are then assembled or fastened to the appropriate finished frame work or structure. While this method reduces somewhat the variability of the first method mentioned above, it is still a time consuming and expensive operation.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method of manufacturing a multi-colored trim panel which is reliable, inexpensive and capable of producing a high quality component having a minimum of variability in the mating line of the various trim pieces.